Julia Kristeva Quotes

“Signifiance is the meaning produced by the semiotic in conjunction with the symbolic.”
― Noëlle McAfee, Julia Kristeva

“No living, speaking being is immune from semiotic disruptions. Moreover, no speaking being could function sanely unless it expresses the semiotic in some way.”
― Noëlle McAfee, Julia Kristeva

“Without the semiotic, our language would have no force; it would be devoid of meaning.”
― Noëlle McAfee, Julia Kristeva

“Melancholia is a noncommunicable grief.”
― Noëlle McAfee, Julia Kristeva

“The realm of signs gives the subject a sense, however fictive, of being an “I.”
― Noëlle McAfee, Julia Kristeva

“The depressed person is like an orphan in the symbolic realm.”
― Noëlle McAfee, Julia Kristeva

“Sadness... is a kind of sign or representation – not a verbal one, but one inscribed by one’s whole demeanor. As is the case with all moods or affects (including anguish, fear, and joy), sadness signals to any observer that some kind of energy displacement, stimulation, conflict or transfer has occurred within the subject.”
― Noëlle McAfee, Julia Kristeva

“There is a very odd logic in society-as-anesthetic: it fulfills desires while simultaneously stripping the subject’s capacity to desire.”
― Noëlle McAfee, Julia Kristeva

“Happiness exists only at the price of a revolt. None of us has pleasure without confronting an obstacle, prohibition, authority, or law that allows us to realize ourselves as autonomous and free.”
― Noëlle McAfee, Julia Kristeva

“On the social level, the normalizing order is far from perfect and fails to support the excluded... When the excluded have no culture of revolt and must content themselves with ideologies, with shows and entertainments that far from satisfy the demand of pleasure, they become rioters.”
― Noëlle McAfee, Julia Kristeva

“To create and maintain a psychic space or inner zone, speaking beings need to revolt against the culture of the show, against rigid symbolic structures, and against homogeneous identities.”
― Noëlle McAfee, Julia Kristeva

“We have difficulty welcoming strangers because of the difficulty we have accepting the stranger within, the unconscious.”
― Noëlle McAfee, Julia Kristeva